I haven’t been blogging much lately, but have done a few on Twitter lately. I have been super busy on “MiG Madness” and it’s coming along beautifully. Still aiming to publish on Xbox Live Indie Games before the end of the year. Plus plans for a Windows Phone version naturally!

Lately me and fellow XNAer, and good buddy Jeff of 1am Studios have been doing gamedev nights after work. Even though we’re working on our own very different game projects, it’s a fantastic way to keep the motivation up. In fact, I fully credit these nights for getting my Game #2 anywhere close to where it is now. And getting me back into the gamedev “ZONE”.

Before then the most I was managing was a couple of hours a week of gamedev.

That’s to be expected with gamedev being my hobby, not my regular day job.

It’s also a perfect excuse to feast on Pizza, music, and movies – comedies work best.

Air Legends had mono sound, so any hint of where the enemy was coming from was suggested by skewing the camera slightly. I’m also a fan of games with minimal HUD. Where more natural cues suggest how damaged you are, where the enemy is. (the Peter Jackson’s King Kong game is a good example of this)

Many asked for a Radar, or Mini-map. A great idea – but I really wanted see if the minimal HUD thing could really work, and stick to situational awareness appropriate for pilots in WWII. Back then radar helped dispatch squads in the general vicinity of the enemy, but once in the air the pilots were largely on their own.

Game #2 will be similar, but with 3D audio which will help immensely, but…

your enemies will attack in waves – lethal, more types of waves to come

…so, I’ve added a Threat indicator for approximate direction to the target, but not too precise to ruin the challenge – DONE, applying polish!!!